


We'll Keep On Trying, Just Passing Our Time

by FaintlyMacabre



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Attempted Murder, Gen, Implied Slash, M/M, Mistaken Identity, The Crusades
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 16:40:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19322062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaintlyMacabre/pseuds/FaintlyMacabre
Summary: It had been a long while, a good long one, since the Garden.





	We'll Keep On Trying, Just Passing Our Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roguefaerie (samidha)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/gifts).



> Title from Queen's "Innuendo." Rated T for very brief strong language, just to be on the safe side.

It had been a long while, a good long one, since the Garden. They really shouldn't have been able to recognize each other.

And they didn't.

 

 

It was a nice night. Not as nice as his first stint in the region, sure, but all right.

He’d been everywhere, literally—every place that existed, Above and Below and all over this Middle bit, and if this felt a little familiar, well, that made sense. He looked out over the encampment, scanning for someone…

_Ah._

And the soldier found the medic.

"Here, friend," the soldier said. "You look like you could use this even more than me."

"Thank you, I'm sure," the medic said, taking the wineskin gingerly. "Just, what's in it?"

"What else would be in it?" said the soldier, his tone gregarious but tinged with annoyance. "Liquid courage. The good stuff. Been a long day, we're out here in the mud for what could be the rest of our sad, short lives, I'd hate to be _aware_ of it all, wouldn't you?"

He took back the wineskin, took a swig to demonstrate its safety, and held it back out to the medic. The medic took it, hesitating only a moment before taking a drink himself. The soldier watched him as he demurely wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, a manner of wiping one's mouth with the back of one's hand that had previously never been achieved in recorded history.

 _Go on, then,_ the soldier thought. _Keel over, that's a good man._  

The medic handed the wineskin back with a "Thanks ever so," that belied no specific suffering or imminent death. It shouldn't have been possible; the man should have been shaking as soon as he swallowed, well on his way to horizontal for a pit stop before the big sleep. But there he was, sitting on a large-ish rock and blinking pleasantly at him. For a moment he worried that this was the wrong wineskin, that he really had given this stranger the good stuff, the stuff he was saving for later to celebrate a job well done, but no, there were the tiny shallow notches he'd carved into the mouth specifically to ensure that that kind of thing _didn't_ happen. He shrugged and took another drink.

_If the man's made of stronger stuff than I expected, it'll just take a bit more poison and a bit more time. I'm in no rush._

"So," he said to the medic. "What's a fellow like you doing in a place like this?"

"Oh, what are any of us doing here?" the medic said. "Love of God and Country. Someone's got to patch up our boys when they lose a bit of blood, and I intend to aid the hand of righteousness the best I can."

“Better chance of that with this wave, I guess,” said the soldier. “Lucky you didn’t get in with Pete’s crew, what an utter shitshow.”

“I was fortunate enough to hear His Holiness speak in Clermont,” said the medic, a dreamy smile spreading over his face. “I found the bit about robbers becoming knights especially inspiring. Leaving behind the sins of one’s past to rise to the occasion, and fulfill one’s true, divine potential.”

 _Damn, got a real believer,_ he thought, his stomach sinking as far as he could approximate the feeling. _Hope he kicks it soon. Although... listen, if the killing doesn't work, conversion would be particularly elegant._ "Not fighting, though?"

"Oh no, I'm," the medic cleared his throat, "I'm not much of a deft hand with weapons."

"That's all right," the soldier said, with grace and understanding, passing the wineskin back to him. "Not every hand's meant to hold a sword, and all that." The medic was looking away from him, almost bashful, as he took a second drink. "Yours'd look good with one, though. A truly righteous soldier."

"And what about you?" the medic said, nearly cutting him off. "What brings you all the way out here?"

 

 

He swore, the guilt about that flaming sword—about _lying_ about that flaming sword—would be with him til Judgment Day. _Longer than that, presumably_ _._ But it was only fitting. A certain amount of inescapable guilt was to be expected. He reminded himself to listen to the soldier, his brother in the cause, and perhaps even (if he did his job) a Brother in The Cause.

"Something to do, isn't it?" the soldier was saying. "Not much going on elsewhere, comparatively. Nothing like this."

"Something to do?" the medic echoed. "Surely a chap like you could find less dangerous things to _do_. I wouldn't discount the possibility of, well, things beyond what men can conceive. A higher power?"

The soldier visibly winced and took a drink. "Higher power?"

"Well, certainly. A man doesn't just leave home for horrors thousands of miles away for 'something to do,'" the medic said. The soldier squirmed.

"Well, you know," the soldier said. "If you got really bored."

"If I were a gambling man," the medic said, "I'd wager you have more conviction, perhaps, than you realize."

The soldier took a lengthy swig from the wineskin, without spilling a drop. "I'm not terribly interesting," he said, smoothly, after draining nearly all of it.

"Interesting has nothing to do with it, dear," the medic said, still nursing a tiny, flickering hope that he could reach this man. "No need for you to find yourself interesting in order to find your calling."

"I didn't really come over here to talk about callings," the soldier said, sounding a little testy now.

"Then why did you?" Sometimes it was better to listen, after all.

"Thought you could use a drink, didn't I!" The soldier turned away, took a breath. "Overworked chap like you, someone who's seeing firsthand the horrors man commits against man, thought I just might... tempt you into a drink."

"Oh," the medic chuckled. "Not much you could do to tempt me."

And he let the human facade slip, just a bit, just for a moment, just for this soldier.

The soldier, for his part, didn't fall back in awe, didn't even throw up his hand to shield his eyes (bit disappointing, really). He just stood there, mouth hanging open, blinking at him. And then he said,

"Goddamn it."

And the soldier closed his eyes, and when he opened them, they were _different_.

 

 

" _You?_ " Aziraphale blurted out.

Crowley put his eyes back to—well, not _normal_ in the strictest sense, but ordinary looking, anyway, for the humans. "I had it all worked out," he said. "Tempt a medic to numb himself to the turmoil around him, he _mysteriously_ drops dead, the army thinks it's a sabotage, goes in with some extra bloodlust and bad will, exacerbated by the low morale stemming from the higher body count caused by an even worse shortage of doctors than before."

"That's horrible," said Aziraphale.

"I  _know_ ," Crowley said wistfully. "Wait, what are _you_ doing here?"

"I told you before," Aziraphale huffed. "Love of, well, God, anyway, patching up the boys, hand of righteousness, etc."

"But this one's ours," Crowley said.

"No, it's—" Aziraphale cut himself off. They just looked at each other for a moment, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "It's ineffable."

"It's  _what_."

"It's got to happen!" Aziraphale realized he was dangerously close to shouting and lowered his voice. "And even if what you say is true, which I'm certainly not taking for granted, that just means I'm even more needed here than I'd realized."

"Fine, have it your own way," Crowley said. "Don't suppose I could convince you to call this one a draw."

"Not a chance."

"I figured." Crowley finished off the wineskin.

"Wait a second," Aziraphale said, realization dawning like the first morning, "were you trying to poison me?"

"Technically, alcohol is poison, so—"

"You  _were!_ " Aziraphale's voice squeaked, but he was too angry to notice.

"Well, it didn't _work_ ," Crowley dropped the emptied wineskin, somehow, into a pocket. (His disguise didn't have a pocket that big, technically, but it would be so useful, he assumed it would, and then it _did_.)

"Ooh!"

"Teach you to accept drinks from strangers."

"You—" Aziraphale's thoughts were a jumble of rage, and he knew, he _knew_ it was no good, but this _demon_ had tried to _poison_ him, _him_ , and inasmuch as things like this were not to be taken personally, he was definitely verging on taking it that way.

"This isn't over."

And Crowley thought, in his haze of frustration, that that was probably true.

**Author's Note:**

> "Pete" is Peter the Hermit. "His Holiness" is Pope Urban II. History refresher brought to you by Wikipedia.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


End file.
